Hope this helps solve someone's initial (new install) log-in problem:

If I have a FollowSymLinks line in my .htaccess [/public_html/] that adds "www", my log-in will fail, since the log-in defaults to the domain name/directory with NO "www"

comment-out the lines:

Options +FollowSymLinks

RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^domain.com [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

:D

Um, actually, the FollowSymLinks statement has nothing to do with login, nor with whether a "www" is included in the URL.
But the Rewrite statements on the other lines do.

The real advice is not to comment things out, but instead to make sure that if you have your .htaccess configured to forced the "www." to be added to the URL, then you ALSO need to make sure that your /includes/configure.php file includes the "www." in the HTTP_SERVER and HTTPS_SERVER settings. Otherwise you'll create a redirect "loop" that stops everything from working.

DrByte,

About that loop....I have tried to add the www. to my configures two times. Both times I just get a loop at the admin login screen.

Any idea why adding the www. to admin configure does that?
It works fine if I just add it to the html/includes/configure, but the admin configure screws things up.

Then you probably have a bad combination of redirect rules vs the URLs you're using in your admin configure.php settings. If your admin is using a different URL for SSL (such as a shared SSL), then maybe you will need to be more specific about your rewrite rules ... in that case, you may have to engage the help of your hosting company.

Why do you need the www. prefix on your admin side anyway?